[nytesky]

Between teachers phones, intercoms, cameras, and hardline phones there should be plenty of communication equipment available for a crisis. If anything having a phone could put someone in jeopardy by making noise and giving away position or distracting owner. What is the scenario that it has helped? Have police coordinated response based upon students phoned in reports and telemetry?

[shiroiushi]

>Between teachers phones, intercoms, cameras, and hardline phones there should be plenty of communication equipment available for a crisis.

How does that stuff help when the kid isn't actually at school, but is between home and school somewhere? If the kid can't bring the phone to school at all, then that means the kid can't have the phone on the way to school either. Allowing the kids to bring phones but lock them up during school hours would solve this problem though.

Also, this is US-specific, but what if there's a school shooting? You don't want someone's kid to be able to call their parents and say some last words to them before they're brutally shot, while the entire town's police force is simply standing outside and preventing anyone from entering?

[DiggyJohnson]

At my school phones were instructed to be off and in lockers during school hours.

[lotsoweiners]

This is the policy at my kid’s school. In fact if a student is caught with a phone then the phone is confiscated and only the parent can pick it up from the office.

[stackskipton]

Not really. There have been phone calls to 911 during school shootings but reading a few reports, it's never made a difference since schools tend to be hardwired straight to dispatch which is most important. Big failings like Uvalde has been terrible response by first responders which is "Push forward till threat has ended."

Yes, parents have been called by students during incident but that generally makes situation worse as parents run to the school causing delays for first responders.

[crooked-v]

> Big failings like Uvalde has been terrible response by first responders which is "Push forward till threat has ended."

Wasn't the problem with Uvalde that a bajillion police piled up outside the school and then never actually pushed forward?

[dheera]

I was in an American school when 9/11 happened and the school was trying to punish students for calling their parents who worked in the towers to see if they were still alive.

Fucking dictatorship we are in. Let people use technology, especially in an emergency.